Drunks
by smithereen
Summary: Haley is on tour.  Nathan is drunk.  Brooke is a good samaritan.  With vodka.


**Drunks **

The door to the liquor store swung open and Nathan stumbled out, squinting as the sunlight shafted painfully down into his face. Brooke knew that squint. She owned that squint. She stepped back to let him pass, her arms crossed over her chest.

"Hey, Nate," she said.

"Hey, Brooke," he answered without turning his head to face her, or stopping for that matter.

She watched as he fumbled around with the door of his car. Far be it from her to get in the way of anybody's good time, but... "Sure you should be driving, big guy?"

He stared blearily at her over the top of the car. "Drove here, didn't I?"

She pointedly studied the way he'd managed to take up three parking spaces. "And you did a real good job with that too." She strolled over and plucked the keys from his hand before he had a chance to react. "Come on, I'll take you home."

"You're not driving my car, Brooke."

"Of course I'm not," Brooke said indignantly. "You think I want to be seen in that thing? Hell no. We're taking mine."

"Oh yeah? Then how the hell am I going to get my car home?" Nathan smirked at his own cleverness. God, she hated self-satisfied drunks.

"I know a guy with a tow truck." Brooke twirled the keys around her finger.

"No way I'm letting that bastard tow my car."

"Walk your ass home then." She jangled the keys at him, before stuffing them in her pocket. Stuffing them in her bra would have been more dramatic, but ouch.

Nathan sat down on the curb with a thump. "Or I could just stay here." He patted the concrete. "It's pretty comfy." He motioned at the store with his thumb. "And they've got everything I need."

"Okay," Brooke said with a shrug. "Sleep there for all I care." She pushed past him to enter the liquor store. A few minutes later she emerged with two bottles of vodka in a paper bag. Now for a good old-fashioned game of chicken.

Nathan ignored her as she walked over to her car. He reached down for the can by his feet. She ignored him as she slid into her car and closed the door behind her. She let him chew for a second on being left there for real before rolling down her window.

"Hey, amateur," she called.

He took a long sip, and slowly looked up.

Brooke held out one of the bottles. "Get in the car, and I'll let you have some of what the big kids drink."

"You're bribing me?" he said. "With vodka."

"I'm being a good Samaritan," she said. "With vodka."

They stared at each other for a long moment. So long she started to wonder if maybe she'd miscalculated just how badly stubborn, drunk, and broken-hearted were mixing in his thick head to create a giant mess of stupid. But then he blinked.

"Drive on, Jeeves." Nathan stood up with a wince, and slouched over to the passenger's side of her car. She unlocked it, and he lowered himself into the seat.

"Try not to throw up in my car, Booze-y."

Nathan wouldn't stop messing with the radio buttons. She knew he wasn't actually looking for good music because he'd slid right past "In Da Club", and he loved that song. No, he was doing it to get on her nerves, and it was working fabulously.

"How's that ADD working out for you?" Brooke asked.

"How's that herpes working out for you?" he shot back.

"It's syphilis, and it's great, thanks," she said breezily as she took a turn. See the thing about drunks was, you couldn't really hold stuff they said against them. Drunks could say a lot of mean stuff. A lot of true stuff. And you couldn't really hold it against them. Not like you could if they said it when they were sober. It was one thing she'd always liked about drinking.

He rolled down the window and stuck his head halfway out. The air outside was warm as it rushed in past his head. His hair blew back. He squinted into the wind. He looked like somebody'd kicked his puppy dog. And then run over it.

Brooke rolled her eyes. "Man, I hate a pathetic drunk."

"Look who's talking," Nathan said. "Miss. Drunken Slut 2004."

"Aw, that hurt," Brooke sneered. "Now I think I'm gonna cry."

He pulled himself back into the car, and rubbed at his nose and eyes with the back of his hand. "You're such a bitch, Brooke," he finally muttered.

"Oh, I'm sorry was I supposed to be coddling you and putting up with your bullshit?"

"Fuck you."

He was pouting, the bastard. Now she was starting to get a little bit angry. Self-pitying drunks were so annoying. She reached around under her seat for one of the vodka bottles, then dropped it in his lap. "Here, baby. Want your bottle?"

"Fuck you again."

"You only wish, Nate."

The car fell silent except for the sound of the seal being broken as he twisted the cap off the bottle. She glanced over as he took a sip and flinched at the burn. "So how come you're giving me more alcohol?"

"As Miss. Drunken Slut 2004 it's part of the job description."

"Everyone else is all...freaking out and trying to get me to-"

"-Stop destroying yourself?"

"Whatever."

"It'd be pretty hypocritical of me to tell you to stop drinking." She shot him a smile over her shoulder. "I'm a lot of things, but I try not to be a hypocrite." She tightened her grip on the steering wheel. She knew the place where he was right now. She owned the place where he was right now. "You do what you have to do to get through it." She frowned. "Of course it you could be less of a whiny jackass about it..."

"Fuck you," he said, but he was laughing this time.

"Come on, you're gonna feel so stupid when Tutor Wife comes back, and you've wasted all this time trashing the art Peyton went through the trouble to make you, and getting expelled, and making all your friends hate you and everything."

"You mean Lucas," Nathan said.

"I mean everybody," she said. "But yeah. Him too."

He tapped his finger against the edge of the open window. "She's not coming back."

"Says who? I've seen Chris. He's not that hot."

"It's not even about that. It's-" He grabbed the vodka bottle and squeezed its neck in his hand like he was going to choke it to death. "She never loved me like..." Yeah, Brooke knew this place too. Brooke was the fucking Queen of this place.

"Like you loved her?"

He nodded.

"Welcome to the club," she said. "It sucks, but the drinks are free."

He took a long pull off the bottle. "You're not really making me feel better."

She laughed. "You don't want to feel better, and you know it." She pulled into the parking lot of his apartment building and stopped. He took the bottle with him as he got out of the car.

"Thanks for the ride, I guess."

"I'll have Lucas tow your car." She smiled sweetly as his face twisted into a grimace, and gave him a little wave of her fingers. "Bye-bye, Tutor Husband. Enjoy the hangover." She drove off before he had a chance to protest or ask for his keys. Her smile faded as she pulled out of the parking lot. Stupid, broken-hearted drunks. Those poor bastards were the worst.

end


End file.
